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This is part of a series on sales & marketing. I previously covered how early phase sales teams should be “evangelical&# and consultative in nature. The first post on scaling sales dealt with “aiming&# your sales teams – making sure they were focused on the right opportunities.
The problem with shelfware is that if you have great sales people, you have raised tons of VC money from prominent investors, you have some marquee clients and you thus likely have some great press about you it can be hard to tell true success from that which is ephemeral. Did they do a major training program?
For example, I commonly see metrics to keep track of revenue per employee, overtime, and absenteeism, but I don’t often see measures of overall customer satisfaction with individual employees. Provide training, tools, and required decision authority. Incentives should be a combination of metrics and recognition to highlight results.
It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Training and coaching. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions. Innovation is not a random walk into the unknown. Ownership.
He closed stores for a day to update employee racial-bias training. Make sure that metrics and goals are set up front, and not modified as the project progresses. Delegating control means having the right information, the right tools, and the right training to make the right decisions. Provide assessments based wholly on facts.
In both cases, it’s easy for them to become frustrated and give up, since most have never been trained in change management, and don’t even know what questions to ask. Define hard (data) and soft (anecdotal) metrics on the change, as well as on the quality of your leadership. Just because Google sales hit $1.5
Decide early where and when money will come from, set some milestones and metrics, and work to a plan, or be caught short. Word of mouth is not adequate for marketing and sales. Even though the Internet is pervasive and free, you should not assume that a website is all you need for sales and marketing.
It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Training and coaching. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions. Innovation is not a random walk into the unknown. Ownership.
Switch your attention from product development to sales. Second-stage growth usually requires a formal sales model, an experienced and disciplined sales team, and a well-defined process to meet your new goals and demands. These only come with the proper training, investment in tools, and focus on customer relationships.
These must be countered by a focus on changes and training that benefit your people, as well as your business. Set up training courses that highlight agility, and adopt agile working practices. They grew sales by 28% in 2009, while most companies were hunkered down and losing share.
Switch your focus from product development to sales. Explosive growth to an enterprise normally requires a scalable sales model, a well-documented process with incentives, training, and metrics for tracking and management. Isolate marketing from sales for maximum customer focus.
For market changing products, build first a minimally viable product (MVP), and never build products for sale until you have real orders in hand. Productive processes start with a plan, and end with metrics that measure value delivered. Inventory and features added too soon. Inventory is money sitting idly by, adding no value.
It’s always tempting to think that more product variations will satisfy more customers and lead to new sales. Some chaos is normal in every new business, but many wait far too long before they install metrics based on “best practices,” and fail to attack obvious bottlenecks with a vengeance. People with the wrong tools or no training.
Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Show that you have a process to hire, fire, and train others as required. Marketing, sales, support, and service operations.
As a business advisor, I have too often seen technical entrepreneurs get a product or service off the ground with ease, but then struggle mightily when their business reaches a couple of million in annual sales, or the employee count grows beyond a handful. Implement metrics and set objectives for every organization.
Then you can do a little bit of research and find out that very few companies ever achieve this valuation in a trade sale so you’re clearly gunning for an IPO. It’s hard to stop a train. Another firm we saw tried to raise $15 million at a $60 million pre-money with similar metrics. Here’s the problem.
In all cases, don’t skip the basic training. Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. Don’t stand still.
In business vernacular, targets are usually called metrics. A good metric has to be easily measurable, and directly correlated to results, rather than hours worked. For example, for a sales person, this metric number would likely measure new revenue or new customers. Evaluate where technology and training can help.
Switch your attention from product development to sales. Second-stage growth usually requires a formal sales model, an experienced and disciplined sales team, and a well-defined process to meet your new goals and demands. These only come with the proper training, investment in tools, and focus on customer relationships.
As a business advisor, I have too often seen technical entrepreneurs get a product or service off the ground with ease, but then struggle mightily when their business reaches a couple of million in annual sales, or the employee count grows beyond a handful. Implement metrics and set objectives for every organization.
I stayed up late every night after a day of meetings doing email until 3am so that I didn’t feel out of touch with our product and sales pipelines. I took the night train that night to London to try and hold investors firm. Dinners were consumed with customers or in hotels and often past 10pm. Somehow this is more honest.
In both cases, it’s easy for them to become frustrated and give up, since most have never been trained in change management, and don’t even know what questions to ask. Define hard (data) and soft (anecdotal) metrics on the change, as well as on the quality of your leadership. Just because Google sales hit $1.5
Implement the key business metrices you will live by. Identify the three most important metrics your business must hit every week to achieve growth goals. These will almost always be related to sales and marketing, since they must tie back to cash flow. Increase you focus on coaching, training, and mentoring.
Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Show that you have a process to hire, fire, and train others as required. Marketing, sales, support, and service operations.
Such follow-up are akin to a train whistle. Each note alerts the investors that your venture is gaining momentum and creating value and they better jump aboard before the train leaves the station. The dynamic of a competitive atmosphere allowed him to sell his cars at their list price while increasing the velocity of the sales process.
Decide early where and when money will come from, set some milestones and metrics, and work to a plan, or be caught short. Word of mouth is not adequate for marketing and sales. Even though the Internet is pervasive and free, you should not assume that a website is all you need for sales and marketing.
In both cases, it’s easy for them to become frustrated and give up, since most have never been trained in change management, and don’t even know what questions to ask. Define hard (data) and soft (anecdotal) metrics on the change, as well as on the quality of your leadership. Just because Google sales hit $1.5
Switch your attention from product development to sales. Second-stage growth usually requires a formal sales model, an experienced and disciplined sales team, and a well-defined process to meet your new goals and demands. These only come with the proper training, investment in tools, and focus on customer relationships.
Decide early where and when money will come from, set some milestones and metrics, and work to a plan, or be caught short. Word of mouth is not adequate for marketing and sales. Even though the Internet is pervasive and free, you should not assume that a website is all you need for sales and marketing.
Switch your attention from product development to sales. Second-stage growth usually requires a formal sales model, an experienced and disciplined sales team, and a well-defined process to meet your new goals and demands. These only come with the proper training, investment in tools, and focus on customer relationships.
It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Training and coaching. They benchmark their ideas against competition, use metrics to track acceptance, sales growth, and return on investment. Ownership.
The problem is that stakeholders, like marketing and sales, don’t know what the latest version of the roadmap is. Greathouse: Having run these groups, I know all about the inherent friction between sales and marketing with regard to lead quality, volume, etc., Metrics related to customer acquisition, lifetime value and churn.
For market changing products, build first a minimally viable product (MVP), and never build products for sale until you have real orders in hand. Productive processes start with a plan, and end with metrics that measure value delivered. Inventory and features added too soon. Inventory is money sitting idly by, adding no value.
With the real data from that surge, you need to take a hard look at business model realities, cost of customer acquisition, inventory costs, and other key metrics. Document processes and metrics for economies of scale. As your business grows, you need employees who can execute quickly and consistently, with minimal training.
Training and coaching. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions. Once a new product is launched, a key metric is the ratio of new product sales to overall sales. This is a critical component of the trust equation, even when the process is akin to “herding cats.” Idea management.
Your goal must be to make every aspect of a customer interaction a joy to both you and them, starting from the shopping experience, to the sales close, to delivery and service. Use metrics to assess needs and growth economics. Really listen to feedback from the team, and empower them with the ability to make customers happy.
Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Show that you have a process to hire, fire, and train others as required. Marketing, sales, support, and service operations.
Training and coaching. From time to time, include customers and sales members in ideation sessions. Once a new product is launched, a key metric is the ratio of new product sales to overall sales. This is a critical component of the trust equation, even when the process is akin to “herding cats.” Idea management.
This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Even if you are doing the work yourself, you need to document requirements, features, metrics, and milestones.
Based on my own many years of experience as both an employee and an executive, here are my key recommendations to improve your business productivity, traction and momentum: Implement business metrics, and tie incentives to results. Perfection is not an affordable target in product development, sales or customer support.
For market changing products, build first a minimally viable product (MVP), and never build products for sale until you have real orders in hand. Productive processes start with a plan, and end with metrics that measure value delivered. Inventory and features added too soon. Inventory is money sitting idly by, adding no value.
What you Before Sets the Course for How Well the Day Goes Make sure you send your financial and operating metrics no less than 72 hours before the board meeting — even better if it can be a week in advance. It shouldn’t be the place where they ask why you have 8 sales reps and not 6. So here’s a short guide to achieving that.
The fitness professional network develops business tools that make it easier for fitness professionals to run their businesses and keep their clients engaged between training sessions. We knew there’s a better personal training experience to be had, so we set out to create one. We just found this hole in the fitness industry.
This will include the first version of many critical processes that can be split out later, including market opportunity, requirements, product definition, business model, sales process, and organization. Even if you are doing the work yourself, you need to document requirements, features, metrics, and milestones.
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